Posts Tagged ‘interruption’

Gives and Takes from #AdtechSF

Thursday, April 22nd, 2010

Yesterday I returned from the first Ad:Tech event of the year in San Francisco. As usual, it was a great opportunity to reconnect with friends in the industry and pick up a few new nuggets of what’s new in digital marketing. I also had the chance to give back some knowledge to the event participants during a session that I joined Tuesday afternoon. Here in this post I will share what I shared, as well as some of the highlights from the Tuesday sessions.

A New World of Word of Mouth: Using Influence to Re-invent the Impression

This was the session that I had a chance to present in, along with three other brilliant digital marketers: Tim Schigel, CEO of ShareThis, Jim Price, President of Empower MediaMarketing, and Joel Lunenfeld, CEO of Moxie Interactive.

I moderated the session and kicked things off with a marketer’s perspective on what’s new in digital marketing—and I promptly shocked (shocked!) the crowd by declaring that marketers have lost their perspective on what makes digital marketing great. I launched into the slides above, in which I attempted to make the point that if we dumb down digital marketing to being measured by the same, basic “impression” that traditional media has used forever we will kill the innovation that makes new media great. I love starting with a provocative note and I think the audience reacted very well according to the smiles, nods, and Twitter feedback I saw during my short segment.

Following me, Tim shared some excellent research on how people share content, and why we need to remember the right “word” in word of mouth. Jim shared a case study on how his firm used a killer new media model developed by ShareThis in which the Mederma scar creme was able to target advertisements to people who had shared relevant content with others. And Joel wrapped things up with a story about how marketers need to move toward looking at creating digital content that mirrors the video game industry—starting with the joystick that is the mobile phone. I will share their decks here when they are available.

Jamie Cohen Szulc—CMO of the Levi’s Brand

Jamie kicked off the Tuesday session with a keynote speech about how his brand has hit the recent button in recent months to become more meaningful to consumers’ lives. While only six months into his job, Jamie is pushing a revolution through this legendary brand that has fallen off the tracks in recent years. I could barely keep up with the gems that rolled off his tongue, but some of the quotes and insights he shared included:

  • “Marketers want more, global control at a time when the market is fragmenting more than ever.”
  • “The Internet taps into core human values.”
  • Levi’s has to become “original, real, and relevant to ME.”
  • The brief for the new campaign was simple: “Make people fall in love with Levi’s again.”
  • Although the new marketing work started with a TV commercial “to signify a new approach,” the brand is taking it to much more digital and meaningful work from here on out.
  • “We must move from Marketing ROI to creating Business Models.”
  • “Change must start from within—you’ve got to change the organizational culture first.”
  • Change is great and needed, but “you can’t disrupt a market in a day… it’s a long-term investment.”
But the highlight of his talk was a case study of how Levi’s created a T-shirt brand from scratch in South Africa. I can’t summarize it any better than the video below:

Overall, it was great to see a big brand CMO take the stage and talk openly and honestly about a meaningful marketing transformation in progress.

Chris Anderson Talks About the iPad

This was another treat—to see the Wired magazine leader and author of books such as The Long Tail and FREE give us his take on Apple’s latest game changer. While I think I would pay to see Chris talk about anything, it was particularly interesting to hear him share his thoughts on how he looks at the iPad from a magazine’s perspective.

Carrying a silver iPad onto the stage (I kept worrying that he would drop it), Chris started off by claiming, yes, this is the next big computing platform after the PC and mobile phone. He claimed that despite misses on tablet computing in the past, the time was ripe today because of three things:

  • The success of the iPhone showed the power of a rich media application platform.
  • The success of the Kindle showed how a flexible, convenient media and distribution channel brings a better experience.
  • The rise of cloud computing means tablets need a less powerful chip, less bloatware, and less hard drive space—which frees up companies such as Apple to build a lovely device.

Chris tied together magazine insider insights with topics that he explored in his books. His main point was that he was excited that the iPad will offer a much better experience for Wired readers. He and his team have been working on the platform for a while already, and they promise to launch a magazine that will combine the best of print and digital. Chris talked about how the killer platform of the iPad might allow for scarcity again, and create a better business model. His point is that “scarcity power” for print magazines was based on the cost-of-entry barriers of printing and distributing physical magazines. But the free information of the Internet is destroying these entry barriers, making scarcity a thing of the past, and killing the magazines’ business model.

He thinks that it will take high-end designers to make the most of the iPad’s platform—meaning that Joe Blogger won’t be able to offer a free experience that matches what Wired is working on. So quality of the experience could be a barrier to entry and driver of scarcity that leads to new profits. While I’m doubtful that this will happen, it would be a “good” kind of scarcity that is based on reader enjoyment rather than means of production.

Chris lost me completely, however, when he delved into the case for how advertising could be revolutionized on the iPad. He talked about how it could allow for engagement, move beyond measuring CPM, and be more creative. But everything he said is already possible today with Web-based marketing. A relative handful of people using iPads will not cause a revolution. Rather, organizations have to take the first step to embrace these features and possibilities that already exist on the Web. He also was in awe that people would now have to page through full-page ads again with the new iPad magazine experience. This, to me, is a step backward in the consumer experience. It just seemed like a lot of wishful thinking for a business that just cannot survive without the mass marketing model.

So thanks to my friends at Ad:Tech (especially Brad Berens) for inviting me to speak at and learn from this great conference once again. I hope to see you in the next events in Chicago or New York!

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Posted in Applications, Conferences, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Milk-Carton Ads Don’t Build Strong Brands

Thursday, September 10th, 2009

oreo milk 1oreo milk 2

Last week was back to school for my two daughters, which means I was right back into the habit of making them breakfast in the morning. When I pulled the jug of milk out for their cereal on Tuesday, I noticed something new and unexpected: an ad for Oreo cookies where I would usually expect to see the usual milk-brand package logo. I grabbed my iPhone and snapped the photos above. It seems many other people were waking up to this new media channel, as The New York Times featured it in an article on August 27. It is an interesting test case in “new media” and makes for a blog post that I hope you dear readers will weigh in on.

The rationale for milk-jug advertising makes a lot of sense from a traditional marketing perspective, of course. There are millions of gallons of milk that appear in grocery-store aisles and home refrigerators each day. That’s many billions of impressions that have gone uncapitalized on, until now! With people increasingly ignoring or avoiding traditional advertising media such as newspapers and TV, this is a viable alternative for eyeball harvesting. Because people drink an average of 20 gallons of milk each year and often leave it out on the counter or at the table during breakfast, this makes for a very long-term exposure.

It can also be very relevant to advertise on milk cartons. One of my coworkers pointed out that his grocery store has placed a display of Oreos right across from these milk ads. The New York Times reports that milk ads can be customized by type of milk—say, higher-end product ads for low-fat milk, which people with higher incomes tend to choose. And because kids drink a lot of milk it’s an easier way to connect with a generation that grew up with one finger on the DVR skip button. Ads are starting to show up on single-serve milk cartons at schools, and Disney and Build-A-Bear have already gotten on the bandwagon. No wonder there’s already at least one advertising company with a specific focus on selling milk-carton media. The firm, BoxTop Media, ran a study that showed a large brand got a 4% to 6% increase in sales.

Despite the new hype around this old/new media idea, I don’t think it has much of a future. New places to put your interruptive ad represent a fight against the grain and offer only temporary sales gains at best. Last year I wrote about how Zappos was advertising on airport security bins, for example. These ads are temporarily cute and stand out the first few times you see it, but over time people just learn to tune out the new ad space. And the ad networks that quickly form around them do not limit their space to clever and relevant marketers; rather they will “monetize” these impressions to whomever is willing to pay, which further deteriorates any hope for the new medium.

I also wonder about potentially negative consequences. A key problem with mass interruptive advertising is that people increasingly feel offended when it comes at them unwanted. In this case, imagine the parent who puts milk into the grocery basket and hears a child say, “Oh, Mom, can we get some Oreos?” That moves from mere interruption to a negative externality, and it could lead to a very poor brand impression for life, if not an all-out boycott campaign. Today’s social-media tools make this much, much easier for consumers to take actions like this.

Switching around among new interruptive media might be a viable strategy for some brands, but I doubt it would work for many. Instead, why not choose to create marketing that is more meaningful to customers’ lives? Imagine what a great brand such as Oreo could to do make its product more fun, engaging, and buzz-worthy. Perhaps taking a chapter from My M&Ms and allowing customers to buy personalized cookies. Let us choose the colors of cookies and cream, inject different flavors or designs, and miniaturize, double-, or triple-stuff ‘em. That’s just one minute of thinking and one possible avenue. But I’m sure that the Oreo team could come up with a lot more meaningful ideas based on their years of experience and customer understanding. And if they are looking for more ideas we’re always here to help.

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Posted in Marketing Without Meaning, Personalization | No Comments »

Zappos Lands in Airport Security Bins

Friday, October 10th, 2008

I’ve railed against interruptive marketing time after time in this space. The purpose of this blog is to promote the need for us to stop finding new ways to just “get eyeballs” and instead create advertising that people actually find valuable. But to prove the concept, it is important to continually test it. Let’s see if Zappos can pass the test with air-travel advertising.

Air travel is becoming a huge target of brilliant inventors’ attempts to make a buck by bombarding us with more advertising. Air travelers are certainly a great target for their efforts; they have higher incomes and need to make frequent decisions about where they stay or visit. And, most importantly, they are trapped in small places like security lines and airplane seats for hours—with nothing to do but stare at advertisements. As a result, we’ve seen ads arrive on tray tables, overhead storage bins, and even barf bags.  A company called Ad-Air is buying up land near runways to host football-field-sized banner ads.

So it is no surprise that someone has figured out how to turn the lowly security bin into an advertising medium. A company called SecurityPoint Media has been written up in Advertising Age and USA Today for its new, growing service. The company splits the revenue with the host airport, and the bins are approved for TSA use. The company claims that several million people per month see the advertising, and they have received no complaints so far.

Research has proven that airport travelers consist of a highly sought-after demographic that includes early adopters and decision makers.  There is no other airport marketing platform today that ensures your message meets the eye.” — SecurityPoint Media

During a training I was giving this week, someone in the audience mentioned that they had recently seen an ad for the online shoe store Zappos.com in these bins. It was memorable because it included cute copy and seemed extremely relevant (see above image). After all, what better time to talk shoes than when you’re asking someone to take them off and put them into a tray? But let’s test to see whether or not this is meaningful marketing.

Marketing

While we cannot get inside the heads of management, one would suppose that Zappos.com, a releatively new online retailer, has a business objective of driving awareness. The company likely sees tactics like this as a way to make a big impact without spending giant bucks on TV. Zappos says that the program is a success.  According to its senior marketing manager, Andy Kurlander:

We feel that this is a highly targeted venue to promote our brand. Each person getting on a plane is guaranteed to view our message multiple times. Plus, with shoes in hand, it’s the perfect instance to remind them they’ve been meaning to make time to buy a new pair. Why not Zappos?”

Meaning

Here’s where I think the Zappos example breaks down. We believe that meaningful advertising must do two things: First,  people must choose to engage in the ad. The Zappos ads, though, are more interruptive than engaging. The Zappos ad is a kind of “gotcha” surprise ambush. Second, the ad unit itself must add value to people’s lives. This might hold true, but just barely. The Zappos ad offers very light humor with lines such as “Place Shoes Here,” which can be a welcome diversion in the slow death march through the scanner line.

Conclusion

Is the Zappos.com security-bin marketing successful? Probably so. Is it meaningful? Not really. I believe new media opportunities like this tend to have a very short life span. The first ad units surprise us, and if they are clever and relevant (like Zappos), they can even delight us. But companies like SecurityPoint Media are not restricting themselves to clever, relevant advertisers, so those of us who trudge through the aiport each week will see more and more of them until they, too, become just another piece of ignored wallpaper along our journey from City A to City B.

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Posted in Marketing Without Meaning, Outdoor | 6 Comments »

Outdoor Cleverness – Meaningful?

Wednesday, June 4th, 2008

Nationwide outdoor paint spill

I will be the first to admit that our concept of “meaningful marketing” is not an exact science. One of the main reasons we have launched this blog is to generate a conversation about what is meaningful and what is not. Clever outdoor advertising is one example that I go back and forth on.

I don’t mean the billboards that are plastered everywhere along the highways, on buses, and even on gas pumps and airline tray tables. For an outdoor ad to even have a chance to be effective marketing, it needs to grab your attention. I believe that to be meaningful, outdoor ads must both get your attention and reward it.

Take the example above for Nationwide. As part of its “Life Comes At You Fast” campaign, the brand took over a parking lot in Columbus, Ohio, and re-created a giant paint spill. This ad certainly grabs attention and I believe most people would say it made them smile at least once. As for marketing effectiveness, my bet is that it wins on both gaining attention and generating a positive feeling for Nationwide. In the highly competitive life insurance game, this small difference could mean a lot.

Here’s another example below for our hometown Cincinnati Cyclones hockey team. A few weeks ago I was walking out of a client’s office and saw this pile of snow on the corner during a 70-degree afternoon, with an advertisement to that evening’s playoff game. Again, it got my attention right away, and it got a smile as well. Heck, I even had a little sense of pride that our local team was in the finals and got out in the community to build some buzz. Plus, $1 beers is meaningful to a lot of us….

The downside to clever outdoor marketing is that it is by nature interruptive – and by forcing everyone to look, they can piss off a hell of a lot of people. In the examples above, for every smile or snicker there may be another cry that these ads are polluting our landscape. Other horror stories abound. Target was taken down on NPR for its pair of ads that placed female legs between a four-lane freeway. Got Milk? ads on bus shelters that put out a cookie scent were pulled in San Francisco after one day. The A&E network was blasted for its ads in New York City that beamed a sound message directly into the skulls of passersby.  These are extreme cases, but sometimes even a company logo can be offensive.

So what’s a marketer to do? Tread carefully. I think the best advice comes from our friends at Millward Brown (full disclosure: a fellow WPP agency and we like them a lot). Dede Fitch, Global Analyst at MB, recommends that marketers ask themselves: “What are you giving your audience?” She suggests that we carefully consider length of exposure, intrusiveness, and viewer mood and mind-set.

At the end of the day, marketing with meaning overall, and the use of clever outdoor creative in particular, depend on marketers’ judgment. That’s why we get paid the big bucks.

UPDATE: I just learned that it is now legal for legal brothels in Nevada to advertise their services in Las Vegas. I guess this opens up an entirely new avenue for meaningful marketing….

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Posted in Entertainment, Outdoor | 6 Comments »